It's been a long time since I last drew something intense from the climactic battle of Gary's story, so here's a moment from the middle of the fight between him and the story's antagonist, MADCOM! Specifically the moment where Gary's trying to gather himself while MADCOM is still searching for him.

For those who might not know because I haven talked about it in a long while, MADCOM is the villain of Gary's story. To summarize, Gary (and Sal too for that matter) lived in a world where robots and humans lived side by side. Factory built in 1998, he worked as a K-4th grade school teacher to human children.

Then the Y2K threat looms, and the humans panic and get informed that there was a violent "robot uprising" being planned against mankind set for the year 2000. What resulted was the forced containment or destruction of any/all robots, and Gary was a survivor of that night known as "the mass shut-down of 1999." Thing is, there wasn't ever a robot uprising planned at all, it was a false rumor that gained horrific traction and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of robots. The humans reacted with fear, and kept all robots "contained" for 4 years until the bot ban was lifted in 2003. At that point, any surviving robots who were imprisoned were finally released.

Now, who tipped off the humans to the whole thing? Who started the rumor? Madcom was! But why? Because he was the central AI for the main factory line that produced robots, and he was attached to the wall, unable to move. He'd seen all the other robots walking around and living their lives, and grew so jealous and angry he decided that if he couldn't live a life outside the factory walls, no one could. The humans found out the truth when going through his hidden files, and lifted the ban and closed the factory he was attached to for good. Stuck in the wall of an abandoned building broke him even further, ESPECIALLY since he could watch Gary become a "poster-bot" for surviving the shut down of '99, rising to fame as a music artist.

Once he rose to international fame, MADCOM hatched a plot to kill him for good. Gary was seen as the biggest "middle finger" to him and his plan, and he pinned all of his hate on him directly. He finds a way to send a distress signal to Gary, posing as a curious robot who was urban exploring the old factory, and gotten hurt and stuck. As soon as Gary broke in, the fight was on. The fight was VERY one sided, Gary had no chance against MADCOM when he uprooted himself from the walls and attacked, weaponizing the massive size difference between them. Gary only wins when he's able to break back out of the factory and set the whole thing on fire. Even though MADCOM had gained the freedom to roam the factory building, he was still unable to disconnect himself from the mainframe, without that connection he would simply shut down. He burned with the building, finally ending the nightmare.

Once again, this is from the early-middle/ish point where Gary manages to get away and hide for a few moments. I've drawn sections of this story before too, but it's been a while! (Tumblr Links)